Five months after her last NWSL match – a farewell that no one could have predicted, with a torn Achilles tendon that robbed her of a “perfect finish” with the Seattle Reign – Megan Rapinoe is finally starting to come together. stretch your legs in the world of women’s sports.
“I was really planning on having a little more space before retirement, and then tearing my Achilles tendon blew that up even more. It was really easy to say no for a while, so I took advantage of it and had a pretty easy end to the year,” Rapinoe said earlier this week in New York.
On Tuesday, I hosted a fireside chat with Megan Rapinoe at TN50, a women’s sports business summit hosted by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Axios in New York. We talked a little about her recovery – she hasn’t needed walking shoes for a few months, but she’s still in rehabilitation and doing physical therapy – but also about her future plans. Rapinoe joked that the stakes aren’t quite the same as when she was still a professional.
“Now I’m just a real fan girl. I love women’s sports so much,” she continued. She traveled to the Final Four – making another appearance on her fiancée Sue Bird’s TV show with Diana Taurasi – and Reign’s home opener.
“I shed a few tears because I wasn’t out there (on the ground),” she said, “but I’m also unwilling and unmotivated to do whatever is necessary to be there. I would like to show up on Sunday and be in my prime. I would love that, but it’s not.
Instead, Rapinoe turned her attention after retirement to a new life as a fan and to her production company she runs with Bird, A Touch More. “I’m really excited about being able to use everything I’ve learned in my own career, as well as the life skills and talents I had off the field. I feel like that bodes really well for this next phase.
The purpose of the panel in New York was to focus on her views on the business of women’s sports, and since she had just attended the NCAA championship between Iowa and South Carolina, we started with her conclusions about the Caitlin Clark effect that exploded interest. in women’s basketball. Beyond Clark’s long-range shooting and what Rapinoe called “an antidote to always talking about dunks,” there was the bigger picture.
“Eighteen million people watched the final. It’s more than just capturing a moment and more than just a flash in the pan,” she said. “It’s something different than anything I’ve been told for so long: ‘It’s not exciting.’ This is obviously not the case.
“Whether it’s funding or venture capital money, higher valuations for NWSL clubs, expansion across all leagues, the PWHL just had the highest attendance ever view – not only the general public, but also the business side, it’s all coming together. It’s not just an investment for a mission, nor an investment because it’s there. good thing. You can actually make a lot of money and you should do it now, not tomorrow or the day after.
But for Rapinoe, it didn’t start with the Caitlin Clark effect. She pointed to the larger foundation of how women’s sports captured a moment in winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the 2020 WNBA season in the bubble and this year’s NCAA Finals.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the national team because it’s such a strong foundation and a multi-generational, multi-decade foundation that our team has been able to lean on – and I’ve been able to lean on – in our struggle for equal pay which helped capture a moment,” she said “Or Sue’s final, when she was at university, had 30,000 people and five million viewers. has been there! The WNBA has been around for 28 years and really doesn’t deserve to be the legacy women’s sports league we base all other leagues on.
Rapinoe spoke about a 2021 article by Kate Fagan on the WNBA on several occasions, which addressed the league’s resilience despite narratives about the quality of play. Fagan’s kicker is prescient: “Taurasi should have been the Jordan, but maybe, just like the league she -she was ahead of her time. Maybe the Jordan is about to burst through the gates. And when that player arrives, all the scales and models that say women basketball players only get a certain amount – so much air time, so much salary, so much marketing money, so much investment – will be reduced to pieces.
Rapinoe emphasized again and again Tuesday that the history of what was built and how it was built, across the landscape of women’s sports, cannot be overlooked even as we celebrate growth. Clark stands on the shoulders of Bird, Taurasi and Maya Moore (Rapinoe joked that she wasn’t just naming UConn players for Bird’s benefit), Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes.
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“So I look at Caitlin and what she did is so much more than that. There’s a huge story around Dawn Staley and South Carolina, that incredible, undefeated season, and the reason it was talked about so much was because Caitlin was going absolutely crazy. Knowing the foundations that they’re all built on, and I think particularly over the last five or six years, since the bubble season, the work that the W’s have done to solidify the identity of women’s basketball: it’s really black women, it’s really black women. for queer women, it’s a very inclusive and open space.
That’s not to say celebrations — or even a victory lap or two — aren’t welcome.
“Being at the Final Four was amazing because everyone was like, ‘We’re winning!’ “” Rapinoe said to applause from the crowd at the Chelsea Factory. “Everyone thought it was what the game deserved and what women’s sports fans really deserved.”
As the wins pile up and the money pours in, Rapinoe said there are still plenty of opportunities to keep all that momentum going and turn it into something bigger than just sustainability — the longtime mantra of each women’s sports league.
When asked how to balance the potential of women’s sports with the moment we find ourselves in, Rapinoe replied: “Building the business and infrastructure around sports because it doesn’t matter how good a player or player is. ‘a team or a moment or another. a league is if you don’t have all the necessary mechanics. She said she saw it with her own eyes when the 2015 World Cup victory was not properly exploited.
When it comes to infrastructure, she highlighted strong collective bargaining agreements (and players investing their time and energy into making them as strong as possible), media rights agreements, fan experience and exploring what sports betting could open up to women’s sports beyond the simple financial windfall. . (“I always compare sports betting to cannabis,” Rapinoe joked. “Sports betting came along one day, and everyone knew how to do it, like we knew that purple strain!”)
Sports betting led her to another of her favorite topics: educating fans about women’s sports and figuring out how to generate interest beyond narrow stories about a star player or the best team.
“The media is crucial,” she said. “It’s all part of growing the sport. Having nuanced narratives, having debates and critiques, and making sure people know the stories and all that – at the end of the day, sports is an entertainment property. That’s why it’s there. Sure, there are periods around a court or field or whatever, but the rest is for entertainment. How do we know these players? How do we interact with these players, whether it’s on social media or on ESPN or any other network? It’s really important to fill this out.
Some fans are just there for the sports and statistics, but Rapinoe said there are also fans looking for entertainment and wanting to be part of a larger movement. Not that it has an extra $500 million, but if it did, it would have a pretty clear plan for it: invest heavily in women’s sports, be it participation, media and content, maybe sports betting, although she admitted that she’s still not very familiar with the space.
“I would also put a lot of emphasis on the community mission aspect,” she said. “Sport always and forever has the capacity to change the world and make it better. Women’s sport is on steroids for this. This is a very important element and a big differentiator compared to men’s sports that we should really focus on and start using as a core principle and central pillar of the business.
With the amount of money flowing into this field, retaining this concept could prove crucial to protecting the soul of women’s sport, what made it special back in the days when there were fewer eyeballs, fewer money, but perhaps also fewer barriers to real connection across the world. the community.
“Athletes are always at the heart of the business – without them, nothing can happen,” Rapinoe said. “They definitely need other support. With female athletes, you always have this incredible level of caring about what they’re doing, you care about the community, you care about the other teammates. It’s a really, truly inclusive place,” she said. “Women’s sports has always been a place where we support each other.”
And for Rapinoe, that wasn’t the only thing that made them special.
“Everything happens in life in women’s sports, at all times, whether it’s trans rights, racial rights, equal pay, gender identity, whatever it is, it happens. still produced in women’s sport. This gives gamers, but also the general public, a way to make a difference, be part of the conversation, and ultimately help make the world a better place.
(Photo: Elsa/Getty Images)